Smartphones and satnav are a pretty good combination, and there are plenty of configurations to choose from. You can use a free service like Google Maps or Nokia’s Ovi Maps, or buy an add-on like CoPilot Live. Typically, smartphones often come with at least one option pre-installed, but there is a third way.
Garmin Nuvifone M10 …

noes...

Argh bloody Garmin

I have an Oregon 300, which was fairly pricey, and for which the maps cost a hefty amount (and don't include any meaningful update period).

The routing is just shite, if I use it to find routes on roads, rather than just direction across the moors. A journey that should be under two miles is over five, once the Garmin has found the route.

Contact support, and they refuse to admit that there's a problem, even if you send them details of the route to reproduce, and photoso of the screen- "how do you know that there's a shorter route?" "Because you can see it in the picture, on the map and I just travelled it" "You must be mistaken".

Oh yeah, and the damn thing sucks 2900mAh batteries dry in pairs, yet gives the most glacially painful screen update imaginable. What the crapping hell is in there that is so slow and power hungry? A granine Z80A?

So in essence, screw Garmin. I hate to think what their customisations to a smartphone would be like, I'm sure that they could even wreck Android. Using the slightly shonky Navigon port for Android myself, until the Tomtom app comes out.

Come again?

"Smartphone-satnav combo that offers much more than a typical add-on app."

Err....no is doesn't, in fact unless the review has left a lot of functionality out it sounds like it offers rather less than a good satnav app like CoPilot 8 or TomTom for iPhone.

And 75% for a brick of a handset with a resistive touch screen and Windows 6.5 that costs £350 into the bargain?

For that money you could buy an unlocked Experia Mini or HTC Wildfire and a decent stand alone wide screen PND like the Mio Navman job you folks tested a while back and still have £20 left over for CoPilot for Android.

WinMo

Heävy Metal Ümlaut?

Resistive touchscreen!!

You know, one of the most common actions people perform with maps is to zoom in and zoom out. This is something that, in 2010, most smartphone users expect to accomplish with the aide of two fingers, in one motion. Putting in all the fancy GPS electronics, a nice car kit, etc., and then cheapening out on the primary user interface IS JUST DUMB. This is an obvious victory of beancounters and hitting a price point, over designing a good phone/satnav and pricing it at what it costs. For that reason alone, best avoided...

Dear mr Garmin

Try again.

I'd like a bigger screen, multi-touch controls, and a non-windows OS. Especially a non-windows OS.

And then I'd like a bluetooth headset, a bit like the Jabra Stone, that lives in the back of the phone to recharge, and which can be taken out and stuffed in my ear when the time comes. That will mitigate the problems of using a larger screen device as a phone, and help with in-car audibility too. And you get to sell me the headset, the money does not go to someone else.

I like most of your software, although I've heard reports that your routing of motor cars is a bit too simplistic, and I like the idea of being able to use the same device walking and driving. I like the fact that you download the ephemeris from the sputniks, not requiring me to get a quickfix over the internut.

But this phone is an odd mixture of "me too" and "worst of all possible worlds".

re: "Dear mr Garmin"

Their foot routing is shit, too, unless you enjoy walking a massive circle around your destination, walking twice as fart as you would if you were using either decent GPS software or knew your way.

Report it to Garmin, include all the details, including pictures of the unit being in pedestrian mode, and all you get, a week later, is some barely literate retard telling you to make sure that the unit is set to the pedestrian profile.

Not buying another Garmin device or piece of software again, ever. Pile of shi'ite.

yup

you cannot know how much I agree with your very objective observation.

Garmin is utter and complete sh*t. A garmin is guaranteed to take of 10 years of your life, just by irritating the flying sh*t out of you.

There is only one place fitting for a Garmin: Trashcan! after you danced on it, put it on fire and exorcised the device. (that last one is important!)

There should be a Health warning on every garmin device:

WARNING: This device may cause dangerous high levels of blood pressure. It will irritate you on obscene and dangerous levels by creating utterly useless routes. Do not use if you have a heart disease, astma or are pregnant.

Mine got a flying lesson. It felt so good watching it shatter on the pavement!

Agree with AC

I would never buy anything from Garmin. Their support is equally as shit as Archos and like Archos all they want to do is grab your money, then grab some more money, then try again for even more money.

But why...

Is the choice of touchscreen due to Windows? At the garminasus website the specs for both the US model and A10 include capacitive touch. I rather prefer the styling of the A10 and the larger battery would be nice. I can't for the life of me imagine why the Win Mobile job has a resistive touchscreen, surely there must be a driver.

Alternatively...

...there's the free WeTravel Midlet Suite. Shoved it on my creaky LG GT505 and job's a good 'un. Uses Open Streetmap and is fairly accurate (once you remember to set the thing to use car instead of foot as its mode of transport). It actually makes the phone worth having ('cos precious little else does!!).

Just my tuppenny-worth. Meanwhile, here's a picture of a blonde tart...

@AC

That's easy to explain - El Reg likes getting kit to review, so tries not to upset the manufacturers with low scores, so uses 50% as a baseline - if this were DOA, it would still have got 55%: 50% for existing, and 5% for being useful as a doorstop.